LAGC Meeting Notes - September 22, 2026

 

LAGC President Nancy Madeoy welcomed members to the September meeting with a joke about the difference between a cat and a comma.

Membership Coordinator Linda Brown collected the 2027 membership dues. Dues will also be collected in October. Dues will remain at $15 per year. Cash and check will be accepted. Make the check payable to LAGC.

LAGC is a winner of the Remarkable Tree Challenge. We won the Community Favorite award for the Tulip Poplar tree that we planted at Northland Library. The plaque will be displayed at Northland Library. Great job to the committee for submitting the entry! Thank you to Claudia, Helen, Bill and Nancy.

Claudia gave a report about LAGC’s participation at the McCandless Community Day. Overall, it was a great success. Visitors to the LAGC booth enjoyed the giveaways of seed and bulb packets, drawstring nature bags and removable tattoos. We also raffled off perennials and Best Feed gift cards, as well as guess the number of peanuts in the jar game. Members passed out information about our upcoming programs and answered gardening questions of booth visitors.  Thank you to all the members that donated seeds or who worked at the booth. A special thanks to the planning committee of Claudia, Helen, Mary Anne and Nancy for creating such an engaging booth, donating supplies and organizing the activities.

Jane, Hostess Coordinator circulated the signup sheet for 2027 for members to bring the dessert or flower arrangement to our meetings. Members who didn’t have the opportunity to sign up can sign up in October or contact Jane with any questions.

After much discussion LAGC members took a vote and approved that we will donate $250 to the four organizations which we usually support: Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, Botanic Gardens of Western PA, Tree Pittsburgh and Pine Creek Watershed Council in place of the North Area Environmental Council. This year we will also donate $250 each to two additional organizations: Allegheny County Parks Foundation and Allegheny Land Trust.

LAGC members voted to give a one-time donation of $500 to the Rosalinda Sauro Sirianni Community Garden for their 2027 project of building a new fence. We voted this year so that the community garden can plan their fundraising for the project but, the funds will be distributed in 2027.

The Ingomar Garden Club invited LAGC members to their 80^th Anniversary Celebration on October 19^th. Tickets are $25 with an October 5^th reservation deadline.

 

Hostesses

Chris Kerin and Mary Jo Clayton created a glorious dessert table with mini lemon scones, almond puffs, brownies, cheese and meat tray, olives, grapes.  The delicious food was complemented by a beautiful arrangement of pink/white and coral dahlias from Mary Jo’s garden. Thank you!

Program: “Supporting Wildlife in Winter” 

                by Chris Kubiak of the Audubon Society

A Praying Mantis visiting Chris Kerin's garden this fall! ☺

May 2019 Meeting Summary & Plant Sale

Colleen Fingal, president opened the meeting up by welcoming all members.  No guests attended the meeting this month.

Club members have many plants in bloom in their gardens this month:  Iris, Columbine, Phlox, Brunnera, Pulmonaria, Primrose, and Bleeding Hearts.

Old Business:  

·      Community service project for Ross Township at Denny Park:  LAGC members did NOT participate in the project.  Too much rain caused the installation of the rain garden to be postponed for the following week.  None of the club members were available to help out on the new date. 

·      Passavant Chapel Garden:  There are still weeks available to sign up to help weed the garden.  The sign-up sheet was circulated.  Colleen said that the garden is in great shape and has been well-maintained over the years.  Evan reported that the annuals have been planted and look good.  Helen Dean questioned if the viburnum bush had been pruned since it is done flowering.  It has not been pruned; Helen will take care of pruning the bush.

·      Upcoming Meetings --- We will not meet at Northmont Church for the next 2 months and possibly not in August because Jenna, Program Coordinator is working on scheduling a garden tour.

o   June 25 Meeting is the annual club picnic at the home of Andrea Maire. Bring a dish to share, chair and ideas for new programs for 2020. Please watch your e-mail for further details regarding parking restrictions, etc. 

o   July 30th Meeting is the tour of the Jennings Environmental Center and will be held at 10:00 a.m. on July 30^th(5^thTuesday of the month). Dianne Machesney reminded members to meet in the parking lot across the street from the Jennings Environmental Center. Please watch your e-mail for additional directions.

·      Plant Sale:  Colleen said that the Annual Plant Sale which was held on May 18, 2019 was a great success.  She thanked everyone for their contribution in whatever capacity they were able to help out. A special thanks to Mary Ann Kurtz who did a fabulous job again as the Plant Sale Coordinator.  A big thank you was also extended to her husband Ron who is always at the Plant Sale to lend a hand. It was a great day despite a little drizzle of rain. 

·      Mary Ann Kurtz gave an in depth overview of the plant sale.  She thanked all members for their participation and noted that 29 out of 33 members participated which is awesome! The profit is $2044.50 which is just $35 less than last year.  We donated the remaining plants to the following gardens:  Ross Township’s Evergreen Park, Second United Presbyterian Church in Wilkinsburg and the Christ Lutheran Church’s Friendship Garden from which we received a thank you note. 

o   We discussed a few things that worked great and plan to continue next year such as bringing flat strawberry boxes, new signs worked great, not necessary to use crates and caution tape to keep out early customers.  We’ll be looking for suggestions of other community gardens that might be interested in receiving the extra plants.

o   Next year we will add additional tables for customers to use as they fill their boxes, as well as, an extra table in the checkout line for customers to use while they wait.

o   We’ll keep a better count on how many plants each member brings to the sale so that we have an accurate number of plants for sale vs. how many we sold.

o   We will have more $1 bills at the start of the sale to avoid going to get change.

o   Next year we’d like to have a better idea of what common plants each member is bringing to the sale so that we can make sure that we have a good variety of plants and not too much of one item.  This idea will be explored further with the possibility of having a sign up sheet.

·     Thank you for sharing! Former member, Marilyn Gurtner offered a variety of garden items on the back table for members to take.  Dianne Machesney brought special tomato plants for the taking and RoseMary brought gladiola bulbs.  

Desserts & Arrangement: Thank you to Linda Keiser for the delicious blueberry pound cake and rice krispie treats and to Peggy Elizeus for the stunning arrangement.

This month’s program was 

“All About the Western PA Conservancy” given by Lynn McGuire Olsac

Key takeaways:

·     The work of the conservancy involves the planning, planting and tending of over 130 community gardens.  The flower gardens are located in prominent public places, within neighborhoods and in business districts across Western Pennsylvania.  

·     The work of the conservancy is implemented by managing the over 11,000 volunteers who help plant and maintain the gardens.  

·     Sponsorship of a community garden is made possible by financial support of local businesses, community and corporate partners.  The people who live and work in the neighborhood are motivated to create a garden that everyone can benefit from.

·     There are also community garden stewards who care for and maintain the garden after it is planted in the spring.  Garden stewards can be garden clubs, youth groups, etc.

·     Some of the projects of the conservancy include the large planters in downtown Pittsburgh along the sidewalks of prominent streets.  The plants are changed for each season.  At the time of this presentation, the tulip and daffodil bulbs were going to be removed and replaced with summer annuals.  The bulbs were being donated to another organization.

·     Corporations are the main sponsors of prominent gardens that are found near the entrances to Pittsburgh tunnels and highways.  The gardens are often planted and maintained by the employees as part of a day of service project.

Plant Sale 2019 --Photos courtesy of Bill Goff and Mary Anne Kurtz

L to R; Bill, Karl, Linda, Jane, Denny, Chris

Helen & Anita

Check out area

Light momentary drizzle, see below

Janine with customer

Karl with customer

Flo & Bev

New category

Lynn

Mary Anne

Sample selection with sun labels

Evan

Karl showing huge, healthy fern (see below)

Lovely variety of hostas

Flo and Bev with our LAGC banner

Claudia & Jenna

Dorothy 

Jane

More plants for sale (above and below)

Colleen, Anita, and Peggy

Dorothy & Janine

Good signage

Arranging before sale

Marlow

Checking prices

February 2013 Meeting Notes

Mary Ann Kurtz asked members to let her or Linda Brown know when they joined if it was earlier than 2000. LAGC hopes to informally celebrate member anniversaries.  Members approved using the blog for monthly news instead of the newsletter which will be discontinued.  Rose Mary Highman will provide the monthly news and Esther Nagy will maintain the blog.  Members may contribute to the blog by sending photos, recipes, and garden ideas to Esther.  Our blog is only open to LAGC members.  Because LAGC donated to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy Association, we received four tickets (single use) to Falling Water or Kentuck Knob.  Let Mary Ann know before you head for these places. 

Since LAGC only has one fundraiser (plant sale) the board suggested a 50/50 raffle as a painless way to help with speakers’ fees.  February’s meeting was the first time it was used with our club netting $22 and Colleen Fingal winning the other half of the pot. Tickets are $1 each or 6 for $5.  For the picnic we’ll try a Chinese raffle, so start saving new or slightly used garden or cooking items for the baskets. To increase our plant sale revenue, Mary Ann suggested that we wait till 11:30 a.m. to markdown plants.  She noted that other clubs rarely discount.

Dot Sims and her husband Ron

Bill Goff introduced our speaker Dot Sims who presented a wonderful slide slow and narration “Perennials for Difficult Sites.”  Dot is not only a Penn State Master Gardener, but also co-president of the Shaler Garden Club and member of the Men’s Federation of Gardeners.  Dot is an enthusiastic speaker and recommended that sites be evaluated for amount of sun as well as type of soil, drainage, and the amount of deer ‘friends’.  Dot and her husband are not timid gardeners so they move plants, try new plants and expand beds by replacing grass. They added a waterfall and fish pond to improve a soggy hillside.  She uses mulch and ground covers to cut down on weeding. Take homes from her talk are: keep a diary; use drawings/sketches; keep a landscape book with photos and websites; and keep a folder with receipts.  Enjoy the plants’ beauty and work with the plants to give them the best chance to succeed in our gardens.

Dessert:  Claudia Hickly  

                       Arrangement Rose Mary Highman

Submitted by:  Mary Rose Highman